Â鶹ÊÓƵ

Many students graduate from the Costello College of Business at Â鶹ÊÓƵ with bold plans to start their own companies. Bethany Rivera and Alex Tugbang, both undergraduate marketing students and classmates in Jiyeon Hong’s marketing course, had already launched their respective businesses Rivera’s Photography and Photuggraphy prior to enrolling.

From the fabrication floor to the incubator’s loft, the MIX demonstrates how principles of entrepreneurship and innovation aren’t so easily siloed with two new courses: BLIMP and Student Innovator Mastermind.

George Â鶹ÊÓƵ Systems Engineering and Operations Research students took first place in the Systems and Analytics Track of the Sage Memorial Design Competition and first place in the STEM Track of the Patriot Pitch Competition with their plan to deliver supplies to a hard-to-reach island in the Chesapeake Bay.

Led by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) within the Costello College of Business at Â鶹ÊÓƵ, the Patriot Pitch Competition supports early-stage business ventures and ideas from Â鶹ÊÓƵ students and recent alumni. On April 11, the finalists made their final pitches on the Fairfax Campus. 

New EduRank report on university performance in research highlights eighteen Â鶹ÊÓƵ programs as the best in Virginia, with Â鶹ÊÓƵ's entrepreneurship ecosystem as No.1 among all public institutions.

The college that now bears Donald G. Costello’s name is a fitting testament to his entrepreneurial legacy. This extends not only to coursework and outreach programs, which have long stressed entrepreneurship, but also to the faculty’s research expertise. Indeed, a number of Costello College of Business professors were key contributors to Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s being named the #2 university for entrepreneurship research in North America by independent ratings agency EduRank.

Princess Aliyah Pandolfi, BS in Management '04, is the co-founder and executive director of Kashmir World Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of endangered species through novel technologies, such as autonomous drones and AI.

During her time at Â鶹ÊÓƵ, Â鶹ÊÓƵ alumna Shrishti Singh has used all the tools the university provides to bring her discovery to the marketplace.

The big winners of a two-month-long competition to create innovative ways to combat counterfeiting were Â鶹ÊÓƵ students and alumni—and the world at large. See who won the thousands in prize money in the Bring Down Counterfeiting Hackathon 2023 and who helped sponsor it.

Â鶹ÊÓƵ is No. 1 among public universities for research performance in entrepreneurship, and No. 2 overall nationally, in the latest report from EduRank.